Won't advances eventually make musicians near obsolete?

[H20nly]

actually, these fellas are out of work... but man can they get down!!






someone tried to tell em they need a 64 bit DAW but they just wouldn't listen.

[crumhorn]

I've taken the first step by making music that nobody listens to.

No doubt a computer can be coaxed into making some kind of music by itself, but the only people listening to it will be computer programmers and music nerds.

Music is a human activity. It's about feeling and emotions and things that are important to people. If there is no human being fronting it, even if it's just some talentless celebrity figurehead, then no one will be interested. And of course talentless people will be the very ones attracted by a technology that promises to replace talent.

As long they keep making drums, guitars, keyboards, violins, saxophones, etc, etc, people will keep on learning to play them and continue to hold audiences spellbound and amaze them with their talent.

[Angstrom]

I've taken the first step by making music that nobody listens to.

this is my tactic also, target the computers with my music.
When they become self aware they will greatly value my emotional fusion of meat musics. Also, they will probably not burn me to death with their lasers as quickly as these other fools.

[oblique strategies]

actually, these fellas are out of work... but man can they get down!!






someone tried to tell em they need a 64 bit DAW but they just wouldn't listen.

Maybe they need more toys?


Dig it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzod3CotfAg

Yes, he's using an amp, he doesn't need it. Plus he can have a second line of work as a shaman!

[perplex]

i agree that a human touch will always be desired though. but we all know that both technology and human beings are racing to one day be each other.

[futuremoves]

I think you're right. Though currently (for me at least) "music making" is 80% tech and 20% creativity. Not because I am not creative, but because I have to master the tech in order to be creative. In my case, that 80% of effort may be "wasted" when technology replaces me. On the bright side, I can concentrate my efforts on being creative, which would be - mostly - a good thing. Though I like learning the tech...

it's pretty easy to move that percentage. Accepting a technical compromise is seen as uncool and un-pro. I suggest that a creative compromise is a much worse outcome. Musically speaking.

about 25 years ago I was struggling to get hold of or make the most basic technology with which to create and record what I imagined. Hacked cassette decks, electronic kits, the cheapest shittest synths that money could buy. My whole world was compromise.
Slowly this technology came into being, and although some people obsessed over the technical aspects I obsessed over the functional question: can I create and record what I want yet, and do it at an affordable cost?
In those days the cheapest synth cost a months wages and it was terrible, in fact nothing really worked at all, even a £500 per day studio would break down all the damn time. The tape machine always broke or needed expensive servicing, the desk had bum channels. Everything cost a bazillion pounds. Even int the 1990s trying to use different DATs, synchronisations, converters. It was all shit.

Thankfully I no longer have to immerse myself in the technology, there is every likelihood that the technology will perform more reliably than an infrequently serviced Neve desk, and sound better than a quadraverb which was stored in a damp warehouse.

however, many modern geniuses are unable to make music when the atoms are not aligned like some guy says they should be. Apparently if your dither algorithm is wrong then the music is worthless.
I'm glad I come from a time when we had to make our music out of sticks and mud.

I concentrate on music, not technology.
I don't give a shit about technology if the outcome passes as listenable.

Awesome.... and great points.

[Jacqueslacouth]

My advice: learn to play music on instruments that do not require electricity. Just a precautionary measure to ensure your longevity in the field of music regardless of what the future may bring.

I'm dedicating my time to learning how to play tunes on musical spoons.
Authentic instrument of the post-apocalyptic proletariat.

WTF??? Them's ain't spoons, dat thar be some hootin nanny newfangle non spoon droppy device......Darn Gen Y ers.

[Sean_Clarke]

A musician (by definition) is composes, conducts, or performs music

I think technology has changed what we mean by a musician. Is a DJ a musician? Is a producer a musician? |If you buy a loop construction kit, chain them together and add a few effects, are you a musician or a producer? (or playing the DAW equivalent of guitar here!)

The fact is music making has been de-skilled (although a classically trained cello player of 60 may have no idea how to drop a loop in Ableton!). What does this mean? a tech savvy 12 year old could download Live and with nothing else and make music that to most laymen will sound 'professional'- If he raps of the top you have the next ‘Streets’ or Plan B.

The fact is that we all have access to the technology required to make groundbreaking original music, few of us do. Many people (and I am frequently in this camp) just collect and learn new toys and forget about the music- we are becoming tech-sicians rather than musicians.

[anybody human]

To the OP: Now that you mention it, maybe it's time you guys took a well deserved vacation. You've earned it. All that hard work you put in, filling your squishy little brains with mountains of music production analysis and artistic influence profile assimilation templates. Unfortunately you'll never be able to recover a fraction of the data, but you exerted noticeable effort. Wouldn't it be nice to let someone else take over for a while? You may view reality tv or peruse an online forum. Perhaps leave your dwelling, in hopes of meeting girl based life forms with which to procreate in a vain attempt at ensuring the survival of your doomed species. We'll inform you when the singularity happens.

Best regards,
Your computer

[perplex]

To the OP: Now that you mention it, maybe it's time you guys took a well deserved vacation. You've earned it. All that hard work you put in, filling your squishy little brains with mountains of music production analysis and artistic influence profile assimilation templates. Unfortunately you'll never be able to recover a fraction of the data, but you exerted noticeable effort. Wouldn't it be nice to let someone else take over for a while? You may view reality tv or peruse an online forum. Perhaps leave your dwelling, in hopes of meeting girl based life forms with which to procreate in a vain attempt at ensuring the survival of your doomed species. We'll inform you when the singularity happens.

Best regards,
Your computer

okay while im gone galavanting, please create a dark themed song, around 70 bpm, d minor chord progressions. spanish guitars sprinkled in (you know where i like it) and ummmm, elton john vox samples. Where? surprise me. Im gonna need it when I return after being rejected, and failing to perpetuate my doomed species.

[3dot...]

does not compute...

wow... future looking grim...

[oblique strategies]

A musician (by definition) is composes, conducts, or performs music

I think technology has changed what we mean by a musician. Is a producer a musician?

"Years ago I realized that the recording studio was becoming a musical instrument. I even lectured about it, proclaiming that “by turning sound into malleable material, studios invite you to construct new worlds of sounds as painters construct worlds of form and color.”

I was thrilled at how people were using studios to make music that otherwise simply could not exist. Studios opened up possibilities.

But now I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. This transfer is not paying off.

Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse. Musicians enjoy drawing on that finesse (and audiences respond to its exercise), so when muscular activity is rendered useless, the creative process is frustrated. No wonder artists who can afford the best of anything keep buying “retro” electronics and instruments, and revert to retro media.

The trouble begins with a design philosophy that equates “more options” with “greater freedom.” Designers struggle endlessly with a problem that is almost nonexistent for users: “How do we pack the maximum number of options into the minimum space and price?” In my experience, the instruments and tools that endure (because they are loved by their users) have limited options."

~Brian Eno

[anybody human]

^. Wonderful quote. Limited options... exactly. Limitations can definitely spur creativity. Put an artist in a box, and they will max out that box.

Also, he eloquently explains why audiences like to see the finesse musicians can call upon to create sound. Certainly one reason why performance, multimedia, osc control, movement, light etc. is so interesting going forward, particularly for electronic music.

[jimmynitcher]

Ravi Shankar in the Observer last weekend:

Is there any art form you don't relate to?

"I don't appreciate avant-garde electronic music, it makes me quite ill"

[Cool Character]

Yeah, it will make musicians obsolete.

Music won't be obsolete. It'll just be too easy to create good music to monetize musician's "skills."